Garden Plain is 0-6 against Hesston since December of 2014 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Thursday. The Garden Plain Owls will head out on the road to face off against the Hesston Swathers at 7:30 p.m.
Last Tuesday, Garden Plain was within striking distance but couldn't close the gap as they fell 44-38 to Rose Hill. Garden Plain has not had much luck with Rose Hill recently, as the team's come up short the last three times they've met.
Meanwhile, winning is just a little bit easier when you outrebound your opponent 8 to 1 on the offensive boards, a fact Hesston proved on Tuesday. They blew past Nickerson 57-33. With that win, Hesston brought their scoring average up to 53 points per game.
Hesston can attribute much of their success to Adrian Hernandez, who scored 20 points, and Reed Friesen, who scored 15 points along with 9 rebounds and 3 steals. That makes it two consecutive games in which Hernandez has scored at least 25% of Hesston's points. Asher Deutschendorf was another key contributor, scoring 8 points.
The wins kept both teams' perfect 1-1 season records intact.
Garden Plain was dealt a bruising 62-30 loss at the hands of Hesston in their previous matchup back in December of 2022. Can Garden Plain avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
